Context: Technical lag accumulates when software systems fail to keep pace with technological advancements, leading to a deterioration in software quality. Objective: This paper aims to consolidate existing research on technical lag, clarify definitions, explore its detection and quantification methods, examine underlying causes and consequences, review current management practices, and lay out a vision as an indicator of passively accumulated technical debt. Method: We conducted a Rapid Review with snowballing to select the appropriate peer-reviewed studies. We leveraged the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and Springer as our primary source databases. Results: Technical lag accumulates passively, often unnoticed due to inadequate detection metrics and tools. It negatively impacts software quality through outdated dependencies, obsolete APIs, unsupported platforms, and aging infrastructure. Strategies to manage technical lag primarily involve automated dependency updates, continuous integration processes, and regular auditing. Conclusions: Enhancing and extending the current standardized metrics, detection methods, and empirical studies to use technical lag as an indication of accumulated latent debt can greatly improve the process of maintaining large codebases that are heavily dependent on external packages. We have identified the research gaps and outlined a future vision for researchers and practitioners to explore.

翻译：背景：当软件系统未能跟上技术进步时，技术滞后会不断累积，导致软件质量下降。目标：本文旨在整合关于技术滞后的现有研究，厘清其定义，探索其检测与量化方法，考察其根本原因与后果，回顾当前的管理实践，并展望其作为被动累积技术债务的指示器。方法：我们采用快速综述法并结合滚雪球抽样策略来筛选合适的同行评议研究。我们以ACM数字图书馆、IEEE Xplore、Scopus和Springer作为主要文献来源数据库。结果：技术滞后是被动累积的，常因缺乏有效的检测指标与工具而被忽视。它通过过时的依赖项、废弃的API、不再支持的平台以及老化的基础设施对软件质量产生负面影响。管理技术滞后的策略主要包括自动化依赖更新、持续集成流程和定期审计。结论：通过增强和扩展当前标准化的指标、检测方法及实证研究，将技术滞后作为潜在累积债务的指示器，可显著改善对高度依赖外部包的大型代码库的维护过程。我们已识别出研究空白，并为研究人员和实践者勾勒出未来探索的愿景。